above, is but very rude, and little to be depended on; and we are absolutely destitute of any means by which to form any estimate of the average income of any one of the leading classes. It is seen from the details elsewhere given (antè, p. 417.), that the amount of income assessed to the property tax, in 1814-15, amounted to 166,222,1287.: but all professional incomes, or wages, amounting to less than 50l. a year were exempted from the operation of the act; and, independently of this, the numbers in the different classes, and their incomes, have varied materially since 1815.

The population of Great Britain may, as already seen (Vol. I. p. 439.), be taken at present (1838) at about 18,000,000. Unluckily, however, we have no authentic details by which to measure, the average annual incomes of any pretty considerable number of individuals in the various ranks and orders of life; and without knowing the numbers in each class, a knowledge of the average incomes of the individuals belonging to it would not enable us to form a correct estimate of the average income of the people generally. But, in the absence of authentic data, we incline to think that we shall not be very wide of the mark if we take the average annual income of the people of Great Brritain at from 167. to 177. each, or at 827. 10s. at a medium for every family of 5 persons. This, taking the population at 18,000,000, would give a total gross income of 297,000,000l. We offer this merely as a very rude approximation. But, how diminutive soever it may appear, when contrasted with some late estimates, we are pretty well satisfied, that, if it be not materially beyond, it is, at all events, not much within, the mark. The late Lord Liverpool, who was well versed in questions of this sort, stated, in his place in the House of Lords, on the 26th of February, 1822, that he estimated the annual income of Great Britain at from 250,000,000l. to 280,000,000l. And we believe we shall not be far wrong if we estimate it, at this moment, at from 290,000,000l. to 310,000,000l.

Considering the poverty and destitution of the great bulk of the Irish people, their incomes must be inconsiderable indeed, compared with those of the people of Britain. We should not, in fact, be inclined to estimate them at 67. each, at an average of the population.

CHAPTER VI.-COLONIES AND DEPENDENCIES.

No work on the statistics of the British empire could have any pretensions to completeness that omitted to notice its colonies and dependencies. It would, however, be inconsistent alike with the objects and the limits of this work to enter into any detailed investigations, with respect to their statistics. Our object has been to exhibit the physical capabilities, the industry, wealth, and institutions of the British nation; and the statistics of our colonies and foreign dependencies are connected with our subject only in those respects in

which they may be supposed to contribute to, or diminish, our wealth and prosperity.

Our colonies consist of the extensive provinces of the Canadas, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, &c. in North America; of Jamaica, Barbadoes, and the other islands subject to our sway in the West Indies; and of the colonies of the Cape of Good Hope, Ceylon, New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land, &c. in South Africa and the East, The vast empire of Hindostan, of which we are now the uncontrolled masters, is a dependent or tributary kingdom. Malta and Gibraltar are to be regarded as mere fortified stations or strongholds: and the Ionian Islands are a sort of semi-independent state, of which Great Britain is protector.

Advantages of Colonial Establishments. However extensive and valuable, our colonies confer on us no direct advantage. The attempt made in the early part of the reign of George III. to compel the American colonists to contribute towards the public revenue of the empire eventually led to that disastrous war which terminated in their independence. Since then we have renounced all attempts to tax the colonies for any purpose, except that of their own internal government and police. They contribute nothing directly to the general revenue of the empire. The fleets and armies required for their protection in war, and their security in peace, are all supplied by the British nation, and cost them nothing. Whatever benefits they confer on us result entirely, or almost entirely, from the commercial intercourse we carry on with them, the opening they afford to emigrants from this country, and the facilities they give to British adventurers for making fortunes, with which they may return to their native land.

The policy pursued with respect to India is different. It is subjected to very heavy taxes, and is not only made, in as far as practicable, to defray the cost of the armaments required for its protection, but a surplus revenue has occasionally, also, been transmitted from India to England. A large number of Englishmen are besides employed, at good salaries, in administering the government of India; and the opportunities it affords to these and other descriptions of adventurers for making fortunes are much greater than those afforded by any of our colonies.

The advantages derived from the possession of such strongholds as Malta and Gibraltar are altogether of a political nature, consisting principally in the shelter they afford to our fleets, and, consequently, in the means they afford for protecting our commerce, and for the annoyance of our enemies during war.

Were this the proper place for entering upon such inquiries, it might be very easily shown that the advantages supposed peculiarly to belong to the colony trade, are in a great degree imaginary. No considerable colony will ever import any material quantity of goods from the mother-country, unless they be, at the same time, the cheapest and most suitable for her markets; and if they have this quality, the chances are ten to one that the colony would continue to import them were she to become independent. It is not by dint of custom-house regulations, but exclusively through the agency of

comparatively cheap goods, that all great markets are acquired in the first instance, and are subsequently preserved. All the guarda costas and tyrannical regulations of Old Spain could not hinder her trans-Atlantic possessions from being overrun with the manufactured products of other countries. And were any competitor to come into the field capable of supplying the Canadians with woollens, cottons, or hardware, on lower terms than we can supply them, we should be effectually shut out of their markets. It is not, therefore, to the fact of a country being a colony, that we are to ascribe the circumstance of our carrying on a great free trade with it; but to the fact of our being able to supply it, or of its being able to supply us, with one or more articles or products in considerable demand on cheaper terms than it or they can be supplied from any other quarter. And a circumstance of this sort would, in most cases, lay the foundations of as extensive a trade with an independent state as with a colony.

Admitting that it were possible—which, however, it rarely is—to compel a colony to purchase articles from the mother-country with which she might supply herself cheaper elsewhere, that would be of no advantage to the parent state, how injurious soever to the colony. Every country has some peculiar departments in which she possesses either a natural or an acquired advantage over others; and in which, consequently, it is most for her interest that her capital and industry should be principally employed. But the articles she compels the colony to take from her are plainly not of this description; and by continuing to produce them, and to force them upon the colony, she retains a portion of her capital and labour in a comparatively disadvantageous business, doing an injury to herself as well as to those she obliges to buy the dear articles.

A country which founds a colony on the liberal principle of allowing it to trade freely with all the world, necessarily possesses considerable advantages in its markets, from identity of language, religion, customs, &c. These are natural and legitimate sources of preference, of which it cannot be deprived; and these, combined with equal or greater cheapness of the products suitable for the colonial markets, will give its merchants the complete command of them. But all attempts at forcing a trade with colonies are sure to be pernicious alike to the mother-country and the colony; and make that intercourse a source of poverty and ill-will, which, if let alone, would be a source of reciprocal advantage.

The state of the trade with Canada may be referred to in proof of what has now been stated. It employs a large number of ships and seamen, and seems, to a superficial observer, highly valuable. In truth and reality, however, it is very much the reverse. Two thirds, and more, of the trade with Canada is forced and factitious; originating in the oppressive discriminating duty of 40s. a load imposed on timber from the north of Europe, over and above what is imposed on that brought from a British settlement in North America. This obliges us to resort to Canada, whence we import an inferior article at a much higher price. The disadvantages of this impolitic system are numerous and glaring. To a manufacturing country, having a great mercantile and warlike navy, timber is an indispensable neces

sary; and yet, instead of supplying ourselves with it where it may be found best and cheapest, we load the superior and cheaper article with an exorbitant duty; and thus do the most we can to make our houses and ships be built, and our machinery constructed, of what is inferior and dear! But the mischief does not stop here. By refusing to import the timber of the north of Europe, we proportionally limit the power of the Russians, Prussians, Swedes, and Norwegians, to buy our manufactured goods; while, by forcing the importation of timber from Canada, we withdraw the attention of its inhabitants from the most profitable employment they can carry on, that is, from the cultivation of the soil, and make them waste their energies in comparatively disadvantageous pursuits! Such, either in a less or a greater degree, is the uniform result of all attempts to interfere with the natural order of things, and to force a trade - whether with a colony or a foreign country, matters not - that would not otherwise be carried on.

But the existing state of our relations with Canada affords other matter for serious and not very pleasant reflection. That colony is not, and never has been, of advantage to England. Were the duties on Canada timber reduced to the same level as those on Baltic timber, we question whether it would be found to possess a single article that could be advantageously exported to this country, or that we might not buy cheaper and better elsewhere. It no doubt affords an extensive outlet for emigrants, and is in so far useful; but in all other respects its occupation has always been, and will most probably continue to be, productive of little except loss. And, even with respect to emigration, it is by no means clear that the field would be at all narrowed by Canada becoming independent, or connected with the United States; the presumption seems, indeed, to be very much the other way; and, notwithstanding the peculiar advantages that have frequently been held out to emigrants to Canada, they seldom have been so numerous as those to the United States.

But useless as Canada has been to England in time past, the connection with it will, in all probability, become much more onerous in time to come. We shall not stop to inquire whether the Canadians have good grounds for the dissatisfaction that prevails so generally amongst them. It is enough to know that it exists; and that nothing but the presence of a large British army is able to maintain our nominal ascendancy in that province. While this state of things continues, the prosperity of the colony must be at a stand; all emigration to it will cease; and the distresses in which the settlers will be involved will give additional strength to the party wishing to break off the connection with the mother-country. The people of Britain would do well to reflect dispassionately on the state of the Canada question. We believe there are not a dozen men of sense in the empire who are not ready to admit that in some ten or twenty years Canada will be independent, or be incorporated with the United States. But, if so, what should be our policy in the mean time? Having put down rebellion for the present, the question is, are we resolved to maintain an army of 10,000 or 15,000 men in Canada? to expend, directly and indirectly, some three or four mil

lions a year in preserving a mere nominal ascendancy in a colony, by the independence of which we should certainly lose nothing? If such be our determination, it may be doubted whether we have profited much by the dear-bought experience afforded by the American war. We deny that Canada contributes in any way whatever either to the strength or security of Great Britain. On the contrary, the connection with it is an evident source of weakness; and, while it multiplies the chances of our being involved in disputes with other powers, it supplies no means of carrying them on, and distracts and lessens those in our possession. National pride may prevent our relinquishing this costly and worthless dominion; but good sense, and the most obvious views of expediency, would suggest the policy of voluntarily anticipating what must in the end necessarily happen; and of providing for the independence of Canada, under a system of friendly and mutually beneficial relations with this country.

It must not be supposed, from any thing now stated, that we regard the foundation of colonies as inexpedient; on the contrary, colonies have been, in their consequences, highly advantageous to this, as they have been to most old settled countries in all ages. It is not to their establishment, provided they be placed in proper situations, and judi ciously managed, but to the needless interference with their government, the trammels imposed on their industry, the prevention of their free intercourse with other people, and the attempt to govern them after they are able and determined to govern themselves, that we object. A nation that founds a colony in an unoccupied country, or in a country occupied only by savages, extends, by so doing, the empire of civilisation to, it may be, an indefinite degree. Such colony not only forms a desirable outlet for the redundant or unemployed population of the mother-country, but it forms a new and rapidly increasing market for its products and those of other countries. No one can doubt that Europe has been signally benefited by the discovery and civilisation of America; but the advantages thence arising, how great soever, would have been incomparably greater but for the various impolitic regulations imposed by the mother states on their colonies. The British colonies, though fettered in various ways, enjoyed a much greater degree of freedom than those of any other country; and, in consequence, their progress, both before and since the æra of their independence, has been proportionally rapid. The colonies of Spain, on the other hand, though occupying the finest provinces, had their progress thwarted by the blind jealousy of the mother-country, and were kept as much as possible in a state of pupilage. The government was entirely administered by natives of Old Spain; the colonists were carefully excluded from every office of power and emolument; one colony was prohibited from trading with another; and had foreigners presumed to settle amongst them, they would have been liable to capital punishment! In consequence, their progress was very slow; and when at length they succeeded in throwing off the galling yoke of the mother-country, they became, from their inexperience in self-government, a prey to all sorts of disorders. It is questionable whether her South American colonies were of the least service to Old Spain; and it is, at all events, certain that they